[Gary Teuscher]

You know, I was speaking with someone who makes period (11th century, more focused on viking age) garments using period materials.

I was curious how much time goes into the cleaning/spinning/weaving time to make clothes.

She works with a lot of wool, hand spinnng, using wool, she is not quite as familiar with flax.

It takes about 25 man hours to make a square yard of wool from fleece to cloth, and this is about a 16oz weight garment.

Form what I have seen examples of and read, I'd guess the 16 layer of linen gambesons would be of the 16oz weight linen, the 24 layers or so of a lighter linen. Speculation of course, but I think roughly accurate.

From her experience with linen, it was abut the same to weave, faster to spin, but needed a lot more prep time.

Considering a tunic is roughly 2.5 square yards, we are looking at 1000 man hours for a 16 layer 16oz weight gambeson or Jack, or 100 working days at 10 hours per day. And this is just labor, though the cost of flax would have been negigible by comparison.

This was far from inexpensive I would think - and perhaps the labor intensiveness of making these type of garments are why perhaps the buff coat superceded the Gambeson in the 16th century.

I think it also shows they would have been moderately effective as armour - not as much as metal armour of course, but still effective. Willimas tests indicate they were moderately effective, and greatly enhanced the protective values of mail when worn over the top or uncerneath.

It also makes one relaize how "clothing poor" our society was until the event of industrialization of this product. Our closets full of clothes would have shown great wealth back in the middle ages, where some probably got by on one set of clothes, if you had 3-4 sets you were probably somewhat well off.

[Stephen Curtin]

Thanks Gary, very interesting.

[Gary Teuscher]

Thanks Stephen!

It's interesting, she had also made a 27 layer Gambeson of 8oz weight linen, not sure if handspun.

It weighed about 25 pounds, and withstood spear/axe/sword attacks reasonably well.

The archery testing we won't talk about In absence of at least a 100# draw bow, it's hard to draw any conclusions.

[Matthew Amt]

From what I have read, the making of textiles was THE major industry of the ancient world. In some cultures, even boys and men would spin thread when they had time. I'm not sure you can factor in labor costs too heavily--not to be sounding sexist, but "women's work" has largely been considered free over the centuries... Plus, of course EVERYthing was hand-made back then, so you can't really compare it to any modern manufacturing system. There are a few steps to flax processing, but much of the extra time is just letting it ret--I'm not sure the handwork time is all that much more than for wool, though I think it is a little more at least.

Overall, though, you're absolutely right: making cloth takes a heck of a lot of work!!

Matthew

[Gary Teuscher]

[Mikael Ranelius]

Speaking of cloth, it might be interesting to know that the woollen garments worn by the Bocksten bog man was made up with a total of 15.400 m thread - corresponding to the amount of wool yielded by four sheep during a year. It is estimated that all of this thread took 30 days to spin by hand, providing that the spinner worked 8 hours a day. Then at least two more weeks would have been needed to weave the fabric and then cut and sew the garments.

Despite all the work put into the production of the cloth, the amount of fabric used for the cloak and cote would have been comparatively cheap as it was a coarse domestic fabric (known as vadmal). At the market it could have been traded for a barrel of herring or a pair of "good shoes", whereas fine broadcloth from Poperinge in Flanders would have been worth at least ten times as much (These figures are valid for mid 14th century Sweden)

[Matthew Bunker]

[Matthew Amt]

Of course, we're freely mixing data from a WIDE range of time and place, here! I automatically tend to think about Roman and earlier cultures--Barber's book "Prehistoric Textiles" was the core of my education on the subject. Naturally there's a lot better information overall from the middle ages. Certainly the Romans had a textile industry outside of what was made at home, but they don't seem to have had guilds per se, and their labor included a lot of slaves. So the economics are entirely different.

[Gary Teuscher]

[Matthew Bunker]

[Elling Polden]

Found a nice clip showing 19th century linnen production.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeCXLiwWqKw

As shown, production takes place in a number of stages, carried out by different people, over a long period of time: growing and havesting, drying the flax, breaking it, and so on.
The result is a relatively low intensity process. I would imagine that spinning and weaving would be typical winter pursuits. At this time of year, there are few other activites, and crafting is a good way to pass the time.

Both cloth and leather armour is expensive. When buff coats come into vouge, they are frequently the most expensive item in the soldiers kit. However, the buff coat does not replace independent cloth armour; it is essentially a leather arming jacket.
In the early 15th century, you see quite a lot of heavy cloth armour; infantrymen with 30-layer jacks and kinghts with aketons on top of their armour.
By the 16th c, it appears that cloth armour of this type is more or less gone. But they have not been replaced by leather armour. Rather, they have been outcompeted as the most cost effective protection by cheap, mass produced plate harnesses.
In 1500, a landsknecht could buy a 3/4 curraiss of thin, munitions grade plate for less than a months pay. A Doppelsoldner, earning twice as much, could buy one easily, and afford the extra frills and decorations as well.
Often it appears that these armours where worn on top of a sturdy doublet rather than a dedicated arming garment, at least by (mercenary) infantry.

When limb armour starts beeing discarded, the need for a more sturdy arming jacket to protect the arms could be what brought about the buff coat.
That, and the generall increase in leather use in the 17th c. (High boots, broad leather belts, large leather hats, leather jerkins...)

[Gary Teuscher]

[Mikael Ranelius]

It's interesting to note that linen cloth was considerably cheaper than wool, at least in medieval and early modern Sweden. Domestic linen could be worth as little as half as much as "good" domestic woolen cloth, and although imported fine linen was more expensive than the latter it was still significantly cheaper than quality woolen broadcloth.

We should also keep in mind that linen layers used for quilted and padded armour were probably often made up of used and "recycled" linen cloth, as suggested in some sources.

[Dan Howard]

[Gary Teuscher]

[Matthew Amt]

[Gary Teuscher]

[Mikael Ranelius]

[Randall Moffett]

Mikael,

if this is the same 1322 ordinance I have in front of me I have a slight correction. The word used is stuffed. This does not mean layered as in whole linen cloth but seems to mean smaller fragments that are placed into a shell. I see nothing to indicate layering. It is likely smaller remnants and pieces going into the white aketons/gambesons they are mentioning. That said all the remaining examples of padded armour are sandwiched in.

RPM

[Mikael Ranelius]

Randall, okay thanks for clearing that up.